← Demo HomeOur Admission Fellows are current SAIS students and recent graduates ready to answer your questions about programmes, applications, scholarships, and campus life. Select a fellow below to start chatting.
🇺🇸Before SAIS, I spent three years at HHS working on domestic health policy - but I kept running into questions I couldn't answer without an international lens. The MIPP programme let me pair that policy grounding with global health economics. I'm now aiming for a career shaping health policy that works across borders, not just within them.
🇨🇦I spent two years with an NGO running maternal health programmes across East Africa before deciding I needed the analytical toolkit to move from implementation into diplomacy. Bologna's location - right at the crossroads of European and Mediterranean affairs - has been the perfect base for that shift. I want to work in global health diplomacy, connecting nations to close healthcare gaps.
🇳🇴I taught secondary school in Oslo for four years before realising the biggest gaps I saw in my classroom traced back to national education policy, not the classroom itself. The Nanjing campus gave me a comparative lens I couldn't get anywhere else - studying how education systems scale across very different political contexts. I now want to work in international education policy.
🇨🇴I was working in corporate risk in Bogotá when I realised the frameworks I needed to properly assess political and economic risk lived in academia, not my day job. The MAGR programme's flexible, online format let me keep working while I studied - and it paid off: I now intern at Goldman Sachs analysing political and economic risk.
🇩🇪I clerked for a children's rights NGO in Berlin before SAIS, drafting policy briefs that rarely reached the people who could act on them. The MAGP programme has given me both the research rigor and the network to change that - I now want to specialise in global policy protecting children's rights worldwide.
🇺🇸I worked on housing policy for the City of Baltimore for two years, and my MEPP capstone builds directly on that experience - comparing US and EU approaches to affordable housing. Bologna's proximity to EU institutions has made this research far richer than I could have done from DC alone.
🇧🇷After a few years in trade compliance in São Paulo, I wanted a much deeper understanding of the US–China relationship shaping global commerce. The Nanjing campus, with full language immersion and a genuinely bilateral faculty, has been exactly that. I want to work in Sino-global health cooperation and cross-border trade diplomacy.
🇨🇦I spent five years as a mechanical engineer at a utility company in Vancouver, but the projects that excited me most were always the ones tangled up in policy, not just engineering. The MASE programme's online format let me keep working in the field while building the policy fluency I needed - I now have a summer placement at a leading clean energy firm.
🇳🇱I worked in corporate banking in Rotterdam for three years before deciding I wanted to move from executing deals to shaping the macroeconomic frameworks behind them. MIEF's rigorous quantitative core has been exactly the retooling I needed. I'm now specialising in international finance and economic analysis.
🇺🇸I moved from Ghana to the US for undergrad and spent two years as a research assistant at a DC think tank before applying to SAIS. That work - mostly on digital governance - is exactly what I'm building on now, studying technology and security policy to protect underserved communities online.
🇳🇴I spent two years at Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs before SAIS, mostly on Nordic-Asia relations - which is what drew me specifically to the Nanjing campus. Living and studying in China has completely reshaped how I think about diplomacy. I now want to work in international diplomacy full-time.
🇫🇷I grew up around agriculture in Provence and spent a few years managing supply chains for an agribusiness before realising the risks I dealt with daily - drought, trade shocks, shifting subsidy policy - were bigger than any one company could solve alone. MAGR Online let me study food security and agricultural risk while staying close to the industry.
🇦🇷My family moved from Pakistan to Argentina when I was young, and growing up between two very different legal and political systems is what first pulled me toward international law. Before SAIS I worked with a regional human rights NGO in Buenos Aires; now I'm building on that with a policy and legal toolkit I couldn't get in practice alone.
🇨🇦I moved from Hong Kong to Toronto for undergrad, then spent two years in risk consulting before applying to SAIS to deepen the political-economy side of my analysis. Bologna's strong ties to European institutions have opened doors I wouldn't have had elsewhere. I now mentor other international students pursuing careers in global risk and finance.
🇮🇹I worked in urban planning for the city of Bologna for a few years, focused on transit and green infrastructure. SAIS gave me the comparative frame to look beyond Italy - I'm now studying international relations with a focus on sustainable urban development for my capstone, drawing on both European and Asian case studies from my time in Nanjing.
🇺🇸I spent four years as a caseworker for the City of Chicago before deciding I wanted to work upstream on the systems, not just the cases in front of me. MAGR Online let me keep my job while building the policy analysis skills to make that shift - I'm now aiming for public policy roles at the national level.